January 04, 2013

LSAT Data Is More Rough News For Law School Admissions

Only in the context of the October LSAT sitting could this new grim statistic be called an improvement: LSAC is reporting that the number of first-time takers of the December 2012 LSAT declined 16% compared to last year. In October, first time takers dropped 19.6%. The facts on the ground are even more challenging for law school admissions offices. As of early December, total applicants were down 22%.

This drop is only the beginning as students get the message that schools lied about employment numbers for years. When applicants finally realize that a huge percentage of them are making a life long mistake by taking in six figures of debt to go to law school, this drop will seem minuscule.

The tide had turned. Students understand that only a handful of law schools can lead to employment that will allow them to repay the debt they undertook to attend law school in the first place.

I'm on board with the idea that no one should go to law school this year. Every single admitted student should put all the effort they planned to put into studying so the could be top 10%- sadly only a few 0Ls understand that means they have a 90% chance of not making that goal!!- into finding another career.

They should try to find a career that won't cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-discharge able debt and three years. A person should only go to law school if they are sure they want to be a lawyer. At the very least, they should try to get decent jobs working with attorneys so they know what they are getting into.

People who get into the top schools have the best prospects. Why do you think the smartest students and highest scorers are largely abandoning law? Because they know law limits options at an unjustifiably high cost.

Everyone should understand the huge over saturation of the legal market.
There is no reason for a single person to go to law school this year.

Try as hard as you can to find something else. Law schools are not going anywhere. The option of law school will always be available. No way should law be your first move out of school.

The national dialogue regarding law school debt and big law firm jobs is long overdue. Graduates who are not in the top 10% of their graduating law school class have faced employment challenges for decades. However, it should NOT overshadow the fact that there remain valuable opportunities for lawyers in smaller communities and smaller law firms. Communities continue to need public service lawyers and the under served segments of our society remain under-represented in the justice system. The are opportunities to obtain a law degree without running up six-figures of debt if you are brave enough to set aside the false values created by the rankings.

"A person should only go to law school if they are sure they want to be a lawyer."

Sure? Students have to be 100% certain that they want to be a lawyer? That seems to go a bit far. I encourage students to think carefully about their choices, but anyone who suggests that near certainty is required would appear to counsel that people make almost never make any choices.

Seriously, you might be on to something. That would reduce the number of law students significantly and help to bring the number of law students into greater balance with the number of available jobs. If we also eliminated all the students who split infinitives, we'd have a lot fewer exams to grade. Don't even get me started on passive voice.

The diversity index is based on data collected by U.S. News. The methodology used to compute the index was published in a 1992 article by Philip Meyer and Shawn McIntosh in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research